By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

Book Information

A collection of papers dealing with issues in the 'Mainland AustronesianLanguages, Chamic, Acehnese and Moken/Moklen-not a single geneticsub-grouping but a number of related languages that have undergone paralleltypological restructuring away from their Austronesian heritage, convergingon a type that places them on the southern periphery of the broaderMainland Southeast Asian Linguistic Area. In prehistoric times speakers ofthese languages migrated to the Asian mainland from insular Southeast Asia.Over many years of independent development plus prolonged contact withmainland languages, they have shifted typologically, particularly towardsreduced word structure, increased phoneme inventory, and more isolatingsyntax. The emphasis of the papers is on historical change, particularly inrespect of lexical borrowings and the evolution of phonological systems. Contributions to this volume:

ANTHONY GRANT contributes two papers: 'The Effects of IntimateMultidirectional Linguistic Contact: The Case(s) of the Chamic Languages'and 'Norm-referenced Lexicostatistics and the case of Chamic' that examineissues around the extent of lexical borrowing in Chamic.

PITTAYAWAT PITTAYAPORN: 'Moken as a Mainland Southeast Asian Language'investigates in detail the historical origins of many linguistic featuresof Moken that have been attributed to Mon-Khmer influence, and challengessome of the arguments and assumptions made by scholars concerning theselanguages.

PAUL SIDWELl: 'Acehnese and the Aceh-Chamic Language Family' argues thatAcehnese should not be treated as a Chamic language, but a sister tonguethat separated and migrated to Sumatra before the emergence of Proto-Chamic.

GRAHAM THURGOOD and ELA THURGOOD's 'The Tones from Proto-Chamic to Tsat[Hainan Cham]: Insights from Zheng 1997 and from Summer 2004 fieldwork'illustrates the development of Tsat from non-tonal Proto-Chamic into thefully tonal (and highly sinicised) language it is today.